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Briscoe, E. J. (2006) Language learning, power laws and sexual selection. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language, pages 19--26.

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Abstract

I discuss the ubiquity of power law distributions in language organisation (and elsewhere), and argue against Miller's (2000) argument that large vocabulary size is a consequence of sexual selection. Instead I argue that power law distributions are evidence that languages are best modelled as dynamical systems but raise some issues for models of iterated language learning.
BibTex
@inproceedings{briscoe06powerLaw,
  author={E. J. Briscoe},
  title={Language learning, power laws and sexual selection},
  year={2006},
  pages={19-26},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language},
  url={http://groups.lis.illinois.edu/amag/langev/paper/briscoe06powerLaw.html}
}